Maybe You Shouldn’t Promise Things

“At Papa Murphy’s… your complete satisfaction is our only goal. Guaranteed.” – From the poster on the store’s wall.

That promise is a tall order, and not something to be taken lightly I think. Unfortunately companies do this all the time, knowing that they will fail miserably and depending on the good graces and forgiveness of their customers. I’m putting them on notice, our good graces are running out.

I’ll tell you a story. My entire family was eagerly waiting for Papa Murphy’s Cheeseburger Pizza, so off to the store I went. I walked into the shop in Port Orchard on Olney and was immediately greeted by what I can only describe as the most bored looking teenager I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. I expect this attitude from teenagers in general, but the air of mediocrity that filled the store was palpable.

He said, with a sigh, thank you for coming in, and asked if I wanted anything. I told him that my family was waiting for the cheeseburger pizza. He quickly informed me that the pizza was on special and that it was last month’s special… the only problem was that it wasn’t the end of the month. Mentioning this fact had no effect on the youth, he shrugged and simply repeated that the pizza was no longer available.

I told him that this was the only reason I came, and asked if there was anything he could do for me. I might as well asked him to solve complicated math equations considering the look he gave me. Customer satisfaction was clearly beyond his scope of ability.

He shrugged and told me I needed to order something else. I repeated that the pizza was the only I came to the store, to which Jacob replied that the menu was on the wall and I couldn’t stay if I wasn’t going to order something. I mentioned that I was less than pleased, and got another shrug. I’m not sure how this is guaranteeing my complete satisfaction, but I’d rather eat crappy pizza from Little Caesar’s than go to any Papa Murphy’s again.

Ultimately I wouldn’t have minded if the company hadn’t set my expectations. They explicitly tell me to expect great customer service, to expect to be satisfied. Then they provide an experience completely counter to that.

The problem with this one incident is that it’s just the culmination. I’ve had less than desirable experiences with this store before, and this was the final straw. Now they lost a customer, and not just any customer, but one who doesn’t mind sharing his experience.

Human beings are designed to focus on the individual, therefore stories focusing on individuals are…

1 Comment

Rose
on at 2:08 pm

So if a company’s slogan was “We treat you like garbage”, you’d patronize that business with low expectations, and end up having a great experience? You only had a bad experience at Papa Murphy’s because of that one bad employee. That’s not necessarily the company’s fault.

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